The winter meetings started with the Marlins in heavy pursuit of Albert Pujols and they’re ending with a shocker — Sir Albert signing a reported 10-year deal worth at least $250 million with the Angels.

And there’s also breaking news that CJ Wilson has agreed with the Angels, too. Wilson’s deal is five years at $75 million, acording to Jon Heyman.

As first reported by Tim Brown (@TBrownYahoo) of Yahoo, Albert’s deal includes a full no-trade clause, which the Marlins would not include.
The Marlins dropped out yesterday and never really considered themselves having a realistic chance at snagging Albert. But his new deal is still a shocker because many people always thought he’d return to St. Louis.

With the Marlins getting Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell, it will be interesting to see if there is any significant shift in the fan bases at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter. The Marlins and Cardinals share the spring training complex, where the fan scales have always been heavily tilted toward the Cardinals’ side.

Meanwhile, as of 30 minutes ago the Marlins still had not heard back yet from pitcher Wilson’s camp, although they expect to before the end of today. The Marlins brass will be leaving Dallas after lunchtime.

I’m not sure how Albert’s signing affected the Marlins’ chances for Wilson. Was Albert’s contract another bit of incentive for CJ?

Don’t be surprised if the Marlins pursue a starting pitcher via a trade. Chris Volstad and Matt Dominguez are among trade-bait candidates, although they’re probably not enough to snag the likes of James Shields or Gio Gonzalez.

Despite national tweets suggesting otherwise, the Marlins are not actively pursuing Prince Fielder, at least according to what beat writers were told yesterday from people on the team who would know.

I’m told that Fielder, as recently as last month, told friends he would love to play for the Marlins next year. But he apparently is not in the Marlins’ plans — yet.

Could a sticking point for the Marlins be that they don’t want to deal with Fielder’s agent, Scott Boras? There were some hard feelings in December 2003 during negotiations on whether Pudge Rodriguez, another Boras client, would return to the Marlins for another year.